Another round of intentional power cuts has begun in Northern California which will reportedly plunge over 450,000 people into darkness. USA Today reports Pacific Gas & Electric instigated outages Wednesday which will affect about 179,000 accounts. Some customers in the Sierra Foothills and San Francisco Bay Area lost power Wednesday afternoon and more are expected to go dark overnight. Southern California Edison said it could cut power Thursday to more than 308,000 customers, and San Diego Gas & Electric warned of power shutoffs to about 42,000 customers. It's the second time this month that power has had to be shut off in an effort to avoid wildfires being ignited by broken power lines the dry and windy weather. PG&E said its shutoffs will last for about 48 hours.